Fertility-treatment urine, CJD linked

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, March 24 (UPI) -- An international U.S., Canadian and French research team says women who use urine-derived fertility treatments may be at risk of developing prion disease.

Dr. Neil Cashman of the University of British Columbia and Dr. Daniel Krewski of the University of Ottawa say Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease has never been reported in a recipient of urine-derived fertility hormones, but the researchers examined dozens of urine-derived drug samples from various pharmaceutical companies and they say they demonstrated a previously unrecognized risk of contamination with infectious prions.

Cashman says disorders such as Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease -- which affects one in 10,000 people -- typically develops in people ages 60-70, and the urine donations for the fertility treatments tend to come from older women, the risk of transmission may increase.

Unlike in blood-donors, urine-collection systems pool the urine of thousands of donors, so individual donors cannot be traced, Cashman say.

"Based on the information we now have -- including the detection of prions in urine of experimental animals, the relative ease of human-to-human transmission, the risk of prion infection through fertility drug injections, and the young age of fertility drug recipients -- it is important to consider whether the risks of these products may now outweigh their benefits," Cashman says.

The extent of the risk is difficult to determine and further study is required, Cashman says.

The findings are published in the journal PLoS ONE.